From The Estate of Harlene Quinzel
by Clayton Overstreet
Summary: The hidden truth about the Joker's sidekick.


I don't own these characters or profit from them.

My name is Harlene Quinzel, also known as the supervillain Harley Quinn. If you are reading this letter then I am dead. If for no other reason than that the Joker got a copy of this. How it happened I can only guess at. I am leaving copies of this letter in several prepaid storage containers, paid for in cash, some years after I left my job at Arkham for what turned out to be a cell at Arkham.

I wanted the world to know why I really did what I did. Why I've allowed myself to be dragged across the world as the sidekick of a deranged madman. Why I take the abuse, the danger, and yes even those stupid jokes. Why a respected doctor talks like a gangster's moll from the twenties and played the goofball year after year while at the same time helping the Joker to kill so many people. Why I spit in the face of everyone who tried to stop him and help me, both heroes and villains.

It's because I hate the Joker more than you could possibly imagine.

Oh do not be surprised. Yes I first officially met the man as a young psychiatrist. One who was apparently seduced by him into a life of crime. Because there are so many of his vicims out there that it is easy for one to get lost in the shuffle.

When I was a teenager still in highschool the Joker first entered my life when he killed my cousin Geogria in a gas attack on Gotham First National. She was a teller and all she did was set off the silent alarm when she took a face full of Joker gas.

Later I suffered trauma as one of his kidnap victims, just another face in a crowd held at gunpoint next to a bomb. Counting off the seconds of my life until suddenly a man dressed as a bar broke through the window, busted up the gang, and tackled the Joker to the gorund leaving only seconds to disarm his bomb. Terrified, gateful, and scarred…. I spent the rest of the school year in counseling with a manw ho was, at best, a well intentioned quack who I believe did more harm than good. How could he have understood? How could anybody?

As the years went on I had more than a dozen more brushes with the Joker and Batman as well as other villains and heroes. Traffic jams caused by atatcks on he city, waiting weeks to pay my rent until the bank found out where the Riddler stashed his money… once I even had to be treated for Joker gas poisoning myself. My cheeks hurt just remembering lying there aware, but unable to move or stop smiling.

Is it any wonder I became a shrink? I did it to face my fears. It's why I originally came to Arkham. Why I took that offer to evaluate the Joker. By then I was considered top of my field, despite my age. Driven as I was by my own demons. The dreams, the paranoia, and a desire to rise above it all. To go on day by day despite it all.

I had the Joker pegged that first day. I kept calm despite his taunts, his whispers, his madness. Even though I wanted to claw off that hideous white skin and rip that smile off his face.

No, it was not the Joker's words that made me give up my career to follow him, not matter what he and even Batman may think. It was his file. As a doctor of the mind it's important to look for paterns and one emerged that I found both disturbin and intriguing. Not exactly part of his deranged mind, but in his very existence. Here was a man that kept surviving.

Ultimately the Joker was and always had been a poseur in the superhuamn community. Without powers and only a mild skill in bomb making and chemistry, yet he was a threat time and again to batman and even other superhumans. Even Superman at times. Yet here he was, an ordinary man without superpowers who gave the heroes every chance to kill him, to stop him forever. Yet, he was still around to do it again.

I considered killing the Joker myself, but soon I realized that if I did I would never understand how he did it. How he walked the tightrope of life and death in a world where gods and demons walked. To understand why nobody else had killed him already. Batman could easily have had an accident while knocking him out and snapped his neck.

To find out and understand I needed to observe. This is where I threw all my ethics out the window and joined the Joker. The things I had to do to win that trust… they sicken and disturb me more than anything else the Joker and his cronies inflicted on me. I won't go into detail, I'm sure there is a huge file in a dozen police computers and filing cabinets. Innocent lives ruined, money taken, property destroyed.

Me he had abused in every way. Beatings, sex, and mind games. Not to mention using me to slow down the heroes. I have to force myself not to twitch when I see a pie these days.

Not that I've always been completely loyal No, if I was that sycophantic the Joker would see through it. He's no fool. If I stayed past the reasonable point then he might know something was up. Or just decide to sacrifice me for good. No I had to leave, team up with other villaisn, and make sure he both missed and needed me. It cost me, both dignity and more brushed with death than I care to think about, but ultimately as long as I play the abused but loyal girlfriend he does not pull the trigger. Yet.

So what do I get out of this? A front row seat to watch the fighting. I've watched anf fought superheroes and villains. Sat among man eating hyenas while the Joker talked and convinced group after group of criminals to follow his lead. Despite his many ultimate failures.

I also know Batman, Robin, and the rest. Heroes, superheores, and police. I have watched many of my former collegues at Arkham become the monsters they tried to cure.

Nobody pays me much attention most of the time. I am after all, just the Joker's side kick.

Tot his day I still do not understand though, why he and I are still alive. Even batman has died doing his best to fight the Joker and other monsters. Shot through time, resurrected, and who knows what else. Yet the Joker continues on. You woul think if nothing else the severe beatings he has taken would have accumulated and finished him off, but no.

I wonder if I could kill the Joker. Is there some force protecting him? Has it been there since that first time when he fell into to acid? Is there more to him than I know?

I consider trying every day. So simple. A knife in the ribs, a drop of arsenic in his food, or just the right push as he stands on the railing looking down into one of his death traps while he lowered someone down into it.

If I should miss though it will be the end of me. I do not even have to give it the benefit of the doubt, Mr. J would torture and kill me… or worse.

So I do the only thing I can. I follow, I oby ordersm and I take his crap. Waiting until I understand. Until I can be sure that I can kill him and he will stay dead. Because it isn't going to be Batman, Superman, Green Arrow, or any of those other heroes that kills the Joker. In the end it's going to be me. I have given up too much, sacrificed more than anyone else, to get this far.

Just in case though, I want someone to know that despite it all, whether I succeed or not, ultimately I tried to do the right thing.

Sincerely, Dr. H.Q. Phd.


End file.
